The Prisoner's Dilemma

by Sean Stuart O'Connor

  Indeed, how very strange, she thought to herself as she walked from the room. Whatever was Zweig up to with the tide? Perhaps it had something to do with his visit to her? The only thing she could be certain of was that everything he did was for a reason. Quite what, only time would tell.

  * * *

  For three days Zweig stayed close to the shore as he sailed south, snatching sleep whenever he felt the wind was steady enough for him to lash the tiller. He’d managed to doze fitfully for the occasional hour but the accumulation of lost sleep was being added to the energy he’d spent on the dunes. Together, they were taking their toll.

  On the fourth morning, Dunbeath emerged from the cabin. He yawned and asked how they were progressing. He had spent much of his time on board preparing the speech he intended to give to the Board and, as he felt increasingly confident of getting to London in time for the meeting, his manner had become less hostile towards Zweig. Bit by bit he was beginning to fall under the spell of the big man’s personality.

  ‘We do well, my lord,’ replied Zweig cheerfully, ‘this wind is a gift from God. I believe he wants the world to know you have discovered his secrets. That point you can see over there to starboard is Flamborough Head and I have hopes of being in London the day after tomorrow.

  ‘But, I’m afraid I have need of rest. I have stolen some minutes’ sleep with the tiller tied but I must have more, I fear. Can you come and steer for an hour or two? I can easily explain how.’

  Dunbeath looked doubtful for a second but then became more interested. He couldn’t believe it would be hard to hold a tiller and the captain never seemed to do anything more demanding than look ahead and make the occasional adjustment. He now came aft and sat alongside Zweig. The truth was that he was rather fascinated by how the boat worked and he listened hard as the captain took him through where to aim and how to keep the sails filled.

  * * *

  Sophie sat by the enormous fireplace, her Prisoner’s Dilemma calculations laid out beside her on one of the gilt sofas. She was lost, deep in thought, and she now lifted her head and stared into the distance, working through a chain of logic. David Hume sat opposite her on a library chair and watched in silence. He knew her mind well enough by now to pick his moment to comment. Smiling at the signs of her concentration, he saw a change come over her face as if she’d reached a conclusion. He leant forward.

  ‘What are you imagining now, my dear?’

  ‘These Gesellschaftspiele,’ she replied dreamily, ‘the power these parlour games have to show us the way.’

  ‘I greatly agree,’ laughed Hume, ‘but where are your thoughts taking you now?’

  ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘we were talking before of the success of the Tit for Tat strategy in inducing people to co-operate and then rewarding them for continuing to do so. Its aim was clearly to find people that one could have three point relationships with. However, you’ll remember that Tit for Tat also punished defectors by responding to their choice and immediately defecting if this was what they had done.’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ said Hume, setting down the book he’d been reading. ‘The strategy prospered through its clarity because a defector knew that the other person would follow his choice and do what he did.’

  ‘Quite,’ continued Sophie, ‘but I now see that the approach contains a great weakness. What if the other person kept defecting? When would the Tit for Tat strategy pull them out of their one point feud? What if the rewards of co-operation became lost in the blindness of their hatred? We see this all about us, do we not - people who cannot forgive and think it would be a weakness to do so? They have no way out of their hostility and as time passes they lose sight of any other way of living. And it’s not just individuals either – there are whole groups of people trapped in this way too. I understand that on some of the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, for example, there are families that have been at war with each other for generations.’

  ‘Why look so far afield?’ Hume said with a laugh. ‘Why, we have clans here in Scotland who have been sworn enemies since time out of mind. They say the Campbells and the MacDonalds will never find a soft word for each other, however long one might wait, let alone consider the idea of co-operation. And Lord Dunbeath’s own clan, the Urquhain, are known throughout Scotland for their fierceness. Indeed, Dunbeath’s fabled Urquhain Rage is much admired by his people.’

  Hume rose to his feet and walked over to the fireplace, humming quietly to himself as he thought about what Sophie had just said.

  ‘You must be quite right, Miss Kant – about Tit for Tat being used as a reason for conflict. How often has one seen an opening triviality between people grow into a war? And always are the words ‘well, they started it’ used as the motive to punish each other. It has often seemed to me that the only conflict in history that had an indisputable cause was the Trojan War, and that was because it was over a beautiful woman. I cannot think of another with such a clear explanation. And what have all these wars ever produced or gained? Nothing.’

  ‘But, what if one was not a warrior, Mr Hume?’ said Sophie, looking up at him. ‘As you said some time ago, there is a great difference between a committed defector, completely satisfied with his actions, incapable of seeing the benefits of co-operation – and someone who’s made a mistake and knows no way back to the comfort of trust and the great dividends of three point relationships. What if there’s an accident or an unthinking error? Followed by a series of recriminations from which there becomes no escape? Tit for Tat will not help because it has no mechanism for people to start afresh.’

  She looked down at her notes again.

  ‘I believe the only way around this is to break the discipline of Tit for Tat –and forgive occasionally. Not every time, of course, because one’s opponents would take advantage of that. But, randomly. My poor workings here suggest that a rough average of once in every three offences gives the best returns. I think of it as Generous Tit for Tat because its big heartedness allows a defector to think again. The world is not rational and mistakes are made – Generous Tit for Tat stops accidents from becoming vindictive cycles, what I believe the Italians call vendettas.’

  Hume stood pondering on what Sophie had said. She was continuing to work through her calculations on the sofa when he had a sudden thought.

  ‘Perhaps this is what people mean when they talk about turning the other cheek? To do so constantly – in other words to play Always Co-operate – would allow the other person to take one for granted. But to do so occasionally would give someone who regrets his actions the chance to change his behaviour. Is it possible that Tit for Tat is an eye for an eye and Generous is to turn the other cheek? I am not a believer, Sophie, but do you think that Christians believe their Lord played these parlour games?’

  * * *

  It was only half an hour since Zweig had asked Dunbeath to take the helm. He had given him the clearest of instructions – but much was going wrong. Dunbeath’s attention had wandered away from Zweig’s orders for a few minutes and the sails were now backing and filling in the most alarming way. Even to Dunbeath’s untutored eye, the boat was sliding fast towards the coastline. In his anxiety to correct the course, he’d compounded the problem and had loosened sheets and forced the boat to run before the wind.

  Dunbeath was now on the verge of panic, completely bewildered by his inability to get the boat to do what he wanted and increasingly unable to solve the problem. He stared again at the rapidly looming cliffs and realised he had only one option. He swallowed his pride.

  ‘Zweig! Zweig!’ he shouted. ‘Quickly man. Or we’re finished!’

  In an instant Zweig was on deck. He summed up the situation in a glance and pushed the tiller hard over. He clapped Dunbeath’s hand to it.

  ‘Don’t move!’ he ordered.

  The captain slipped like lightening around the jacht, tightening sheets and slackening others. He flew back to take the tiller from Dunbeath and, without a word, pushed it hard over to put the boa
t about. The sails swung across and filled again. As the boat was carried by the rushing tide a black rock came roaring alongside, missing its beam by a coat of paint.

  Almost immediately, Zweig put in a further tack and the boat’s head came up. He closed Dunbeath’s hand on the tiller again and once more he flashed forward to reset the sails. The boat heeled as it came up closer to the wind but, inch by heart-stopping inch, it pulled away from trouble.

  Zweig came aft to take the tiller and only then did he remove his eyes from the sails and look over towards Dunbeath’s pinched and anxious face. There was something about the man’s expression and the complete collapse of his arrogant confidence that made Zweig instinctively burst out laughing. There was not slightest trace of recrimination in the laugh, but simply the joy of being alive. And then Dunbeath started to laugh too. Tightly at first. But, as the tension left him, more and more, until his head went back and tears ran down his cheeks. Then he began to roar uncontrollably, consumed by the total and joyful laughter of release and the two men stood on the deck, shaking, staring at each other, sharing a hilarity that could only come from having so narrowly avoided death.

  A lifetime of suspicion and repressed feelings burst in Dunbeath. He had never in his whole life allowed himself to be as dominated as he had these past few minutes and he had never had anyone be so unthinkingly forgiving towards him when he’d failed. But the captain had not judged him and Dunbeath suddenly felt completely intoxicated with relief, even lighthearted. And safe. It had taken a terrifying crisis to do it, a vision of death, but for the first time in his life he felt open and happy.

  And so the two of them sailed on towards London, catching each other’s eye and then collapsing into the simple laughter of small boys – as only people who have just escaped death can do.

  Dunbeath had only to say: ‘did you see that rock?’ for them to break down in tears of laughter once more. Yet again, Zweig’s extraordinary will and charisma had brought someone swinging from hostility and doubt through a complete reversal of opinion to the warmth of a trusting friendship

  Chapter 20

  Once the dam had burst there was little to hold back the flood and a friendship between Zweig and Dunbeath, so impossible to imagine only a few days before, now grew by the hour. Zweig spent much of that and the following day showing the earl the rudiments of sailing and it quickly became clear that this was a skill that he took to with interest and enthusiasm. For a man that had known only a deep sense of antagonism towards the ways of the world, the excitement of finding an inanimate object that reacted to his wishes and intelligence and yet worked with ever-changing natural conditions, became a joy to him.

  Now the pair barely stopped speaking except when they slept. Having established Dunbeath as a helmsman capable of following simple orders, Zweig had felt able to grab at some much needed rest and before long he was as alert and forward thinking as he’d been before his long vigil.

  For his part, Dunbeath found Zweig compelling company. The two men scarcely drew breath as they spent hours discussing a range of navigational matters and, in particular, the various approaches that the German merchants employed in the Baltic. The many ways that Zweig described how the lack of an effective measurement of longitude had limited their wider trading activities was of great interest to Dunbeath. He’d always taken an academic approach to astronomy and the experience of now bringing his deep knowledge of theoretical navigation to the realities of life at sea was hugely exhilarating to him.

  The next two days passed quickly for them both and it seemed no time at all before Dunbeath’s little craft was working its way up the Thames and mooring by Execution Dock at Wapping. By then the friendship between the men was firmly established, heightened as it was by the importance of Dunbeath’s mission, but also by such an extraordinary swing in the earl’s opinion of Zweig that it could only be described as the zeal of the convert.

  The captain now carefully secured the boat to a trot of grain barges and Dunbeath went below to gather up his charts. Together the two men set off in the direction of The Prospect, the most prominent of the waterside inns that lined the riverbank, and it was only a few minutes later that they were negotiating with the ostler there for a carriage to carry them to the earl’s London house.

  Within an hour the coachman was pulling up outside a fabulous neo-classical mansion off St. James’s Street, nestled in its own courtyard and with a view down to the park. Dunbeath paid off the carriage and knocked hard on the front door. Half a minute later there was still no response and he banged again, louder this time. There was a further wait until the door opened a crack and a disheveled man, unshaven and with his clothing unbuttoned, gave them a sharp and unwelcoming scowl.

  ‘What do you want? What business have you here?’

  ‘Headley, it is me, your master! Let us in and open up the house.’

  The butler took a step backwards in horror and began a series of flustered apologies and excuses.

  ‘I’m afraid I hardly recognised you, my lord,’ he said, gazing in dismay at Dunbeath’s appearance. ‘I am more used to seeing you dressed for the city. It’s been so long since we’ve had the pleasure of your company. Let me see, it must be three, or even four years. Perhaps more.’

  Dunbeath could not have cared less about the state of the house nor the unreadiness of his servants. He dropped his bag and carried the presentation into a large and lavishly decorated drawing room where he pulled the dustsheet off a sofa.

  ‘Captain, set yourself here. Let me unroll these charts for you now we’re able to spread ourselves.’

  Within minutes the great mansion was in uproar as the butler roused up the household. Servants appeared from every door, their features strained in shock, pulling on livery and clattering about, opening blinds and pulling back curtains. Martins, the housekeeper, bustled in, confused and tongue-tied, apologising in stammered bursts for the state of the house. But once Dunbeath had settled her with an unconcerned wave of the hand, she embarked on a series of curt orders to the bewildered maids to open windows, light fires and make beds with all the furious efficiency of a staff sergeant under enemy fire.

  Dunbeath was completely oblivious to the activity that had erupted around him. Going over to a desk in the window, he pulled a sheaf of paper from a drawer. He set to scrawling a letter and then called out for the butler.

  ‘Headley, have the carriage prepared with all haste. Ask Makepeace to join me here.’

  He looked about the room and gestured to an anxious looking footman.

  ‘You, when you’re dressed you’re to drive with Makepeace down to Greenwich. Find the Royal Observatory – you’ll see it on the hill there – and take this letter to Mr James Bradley. He’s the Astronomer Royal, they’ll all know him. Deliver it to him in person with my compliments and ask him to come back here with you immediately. He will know that it’s of the utmost urgency. You’re to see that Makepeace is driving with all speed. Go now.’

  He passed the letter over to the footman and turned again to his butler.

  ‘Now Headley, my friend Captain Zweig and I shall need hot water for bathtubs. And send for a barber. We must both be at our best tomorrow, close shaved, pressed finery and powered wigs. Have a tailor come immediately. Captain Zweig is a bigger man than I am and if he is to fit into my clothes they will need some adjustment.

  ‘Zweig, if you please. Let me show you these charts and I shall explain to you how I am to win the Prize. I want you to be with me at the meeting if you’d be so kind, should anyone wish for the opinion of the experienced captain that will be running the final sea trials.’

  Zweig bowed, murmuring that he was most flattered and more than happy to be used in such a role. And so, for the next two hours, the two men sat with their heads together talking in low voices as Dunbeath rehearsed his presentation yet again.

  * * *

  On another sofa, five hundred miles further north, Sophie sat in her usual place, surrounded as ever by reams of calc
ulations. She was staring into space, turning over a thought in her head, when David Hume came into the room, whistling lightly as he straightened his coat.

  ‘Helloa, Miss Kant,’ he called out as he saw her, ‘I know that look. Behind those beautiful eyes I perceive a great machine is at work.’

  ‘Mr Hume!’ said Sophie, delightedly. ‘Well, yes you are right in the sense that I was indeed thinking. In fact, I was thinking about something you said yesterday. About turning the other cheek. I know you are not a believer but the more I consider it, the more I feel the Lord might have been sitting here with us exploring the Prisoner’s Dilemma.’

  ‘In what way, Sophie?’

  ‘Well, we’ve spoken much of the success of co-operation in long term relationships between people who want to build societies rather than exploit others – what the Dilemma would call three point achievers – people whose instinct is to trust rather than not to. You have called them doves. And your parable of the conflict between the hawks and the doves was most illuminating because it showed how the hawks will quickly run short of doves to kill and have then to meet others like themselves in bloody and exhausting battles.

  ‘Now, imagine that like the hawks and doves of your story, there are whole coalitions of people who think the same way. They assemble to take up the fight against a common enemy. Which of the sides will be the more successful? Those in which people are joined by trust or those that are joined by fear?’

  She gestured towards her pages of calculations.

  ‘We have found, have we not, that the numbers tell their own story. Co-operators are the ones who trust each other enough to stay silent, who look for partners to have stable and lengthy co-operative relationships with, and who have found that trust and virtue are the cornerstones of how to win in life. They have found that co-operation wins.